This whole getting older thing is really getting old.

So I’m shopping at Save On recently, chatting to the checkout clerk, a nice friendly young woman. As she gave the receipt she said, “Have a good day My Dear.” And there it was.

“My Dear!”

It was as though Save On’s Daryl, who I’m sure is a very nice man, came on the PA and announced, “Old Man Checkout Aisle 5. Old Man Aisle 5.” Now this may seem a ridiculous and foreign concept to you, particularly if you’re a young punk like sixty or so but that was the first time I realized that I really am old. Never mind the stolen familiarity of ‘my dear’ there was no getting away from it anymore.

Turns out: I AM OLD.

So here’s the deal. If I am old I have a few things to get off my chest and no time to waste if I understand the inevitable destination of ‘old’ correctly.

Like changing rooms for example.

Put some clothes on for Goodness Sake. You were too shy to walk around naked in a changing room when you were young and in full bloom. You remember, back when your mirror actually gave you a thumbs up. But now? Now you’re okay with it, now when the mirror cracks when you stand in front of. it? Now you’re okay with parading around absolutely starkers? Come on!

Naturally, I have no idea what the secret protocols are in women’s changing rooms. I’m sure they are mysterious. But at 72, I do understand the complex and finely balanced interplay in mens’s changing rooms. As our parents taught us, you can find any level of comfort; be as naked as the day you were born, cover yourself with a towel or go behind a closed door to change. There’s great democracy in changing room nudity, each one of us can find our balance.

Now look before you get all twisted in a knot, I’m not talking about the ‘strip off, go shower dry yourself put your clothes on and leave kind of guy’. No, I’m talking about THAT guy. The outlier. The one who fashions himself after some Greek statue, so sure of his physical beauty he walks among us without inhibition. Acceptable even understandable at oh I don’t know 23, I’ll give you that. But as we all know or find out in due course, the sands of time chip away at everything, including the marble of our young bodies. Now don’t get me wrong. Visit Tuscany in Italy and it won’t be moments before you will see magnificent monumental marble statues in every town piazza, basking in all of their naked glory as countless Renaissance sculptors pursued the perfect human form, the statues as glorious today as they were in the living embodiment of the model. No, that is not what I’m fussed about. This modern day locker room ‘Adonis’ of whom I speak may very well, once upon a time have been all of that but he’s pushing seventy-five now and well, this just in, now he’s just plain old and wrinkly, the testicular descent unavoidable to the human eye. By the way, lest by now you are calling me all manner of names, it’s not the naked old body I’m going on about, it’s the twenty-two minutes he took to clean it. Twenty-two. 22! And over half of those long, slow, glacial minutes he was face out to the room, you know just in case. And I’m pretty sure we were in a Stage 5 Drought! Don’t suppose he considered that oh I don’t know after ten minutes, twelve, fifteen? No of course he didn’t the Environmental Terrorist he revealed himself to be. Among other things. Over the top? A bit much? Whatever. Did I tell you I am 72.

So look fill your boots. Call me homophobic or prudish as you like. I’m neither of those but if it lets you feel better, fly at it. Heck apparently you can even call me old now if that works for you. Or ‘my dear’, that’s the one that seems to really get me going.

Be that as it may, I made one thing abundantly clear right off the top. It seems I’m old now and I have a few things to get off my chest.

Consider that done. I’m sure there’ll be more.

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